I know.
I don't know what to expect, really. My mom (WHO IS NOT SIXTY-TWO BUT IN FACT SIXTY-ONE AS IS MY FATHER AND SHE WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT THANK YOU VERY MUCH) told me not to feel guilty about feeling happy about having more kids in school than out.
I don't. (Well, I sorta do, but I'm fighting it valiantly, as one does.)
I already expect a shorter walk to and from school.
I already expect more reading.
And I already expect more alone time with Lucy.
Yesterday afternoon I took Lucy for a walk in the perfect September sunshine as a sort of preview of the next two school years. She tucked her vile and filthy bunny under her sweet little toddler armpit and wandered along beside me, mostly silent, but every once in a while piping up to point out a particularly lovely cloud, or motorcycle, or to ask me if Norah died*
As we walk, I feel the need to pass some gas. So I do. We're alone on our side of the street, it's a Sunday afternoon in a tourist town in the fall...why suffer in silence?
From me: [barely audible, completely genteel] thwarp
From Lucy, with glee, as loudly as her two-year-old-lungs can manage: "TOOT! MOMMY TOOT!"
So now I know what to expect.
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*My mother (who is sixty-one, remember)** picked Norah up on Friday night for a sleepover, after Oscar and Lucy were already in bed. It took them until Saturday morning - let's say eleven-ish) to notice she was gone. Oscar asked if she had died.
**I'M SORRY, MOM. I CAN'T STOP MYSELF. IT'S A DISEASE.
